Читать книгу The Memories We Keep - Walter Zacharius - Страница 14

I awoke to a blazing, blinding searchlight. As my panic-stricken eyes moved from left to right, excruciating pain ricocheted through my skull and I feared I’d lose consciousness again. Slowly I realized it was no searchlight. The searing beam was the noontime sun.

Brown leaves darted and swirled above me. When I tried to move my head, pain ripped down my spine. I was drenched in sweat. My cheeks burned, yet my back and legs were numb. I forced myself into a sitting position—at least my back wasn’t broken!—and looked around. To the left, a scraggly field with a few trees. To the right, two brilliant fireballs glowed like the smelting ovens of the Baluty. The sun again. With great concentration I brought the orbs together, as if focusing on an image through one of Nate Kolleck’s cameras. The orbs merged, flew apart, then came together as my ears hummed with a high, insistent buzz. I shook my head to clear the noise. Nausea overwhelmed me.

Lost. Alone. Hurt. I rested on my hands and knees, allowing my head to hang limp until the nausea subsided. My coat was torn. I could see bruises on my arms and legs.

I dragged myself onto an embankment. Railroad tracks. Oh, God! I remembered.

What had happened to Papa? He was directly behind me, shoved me out, then the shot. Was he killed? Had the Germans murdered them all, Papa and Mama and Jozef? Or were they on their way to Treblinka, no escape possible, and there a fate no one could foretell? I began to sob. There was a thicket some fifty feet from where I was lying, and I crawled to it. I would make my way to Treblinka, I decided, to see if I could somehow rescue my family—buy them out, perhaps, with money I made en route, or at least signal them that help was coming so they would not lose hope. Even as I had these thoughts I knew they were fantasies, yet I let them sustain me. I lay in a thicket and closed my eyes, picturing the house on Kowalska Street when I was young.

I fell asleep, and when I awoke, dawn was creeping over the fields. For a moment, I felt refreshed, the long rest having dulled my body’s aches, but then I remembered where I was and what had happened, and anguish returned. I was glad of one thing: I had not taken Nate’s photographs, and so if I was stopped on my travels—to where? In what direction?—I could not be accused of spying. Indeed, no one would know I came from Lodz or, more important, that I was Jewish. It was a strange feeling; I could be whoever I wanted, create my own past, make up any story to explain my circumstances, even—no, I would keep my first name. It was my gift from Mama and Papa.

With great care, I got to my feet and walked back to the embankment, pain shooting through my left hip where the bone had shifted in its socket. There I examined my injuries, as if Marisa Levy were some laboratory animal for study. My feet were swollen, my legs were scratched and cut, the bruises had darkened in the night. My ribs were badly bruised and my coat shredded beyond repair. Beneath my cardigan sweater, my wool dress was ripped, and my underwear showed through. I would have to do something about that, but had no idea what. The dress was stuck to my body in a dozen places where my bloody wounds had dried.

I crossed the tracks, dragging my left leg through fallen stalks of meadow grass. The sun, out fully now, was blessedly warm, and I realized I was ravenous. In the distance, I could make out a farm cottage; on the edge of its harrowed field, the blue-black surface of a pond glittered in the sunshine. I would decide later whether to approach the cottage; what was incontestable was that I needed the pond. I pulled up a handful of winter-spared field grass and chewed the stalks, my parched tongue taking in the moisture.

Soon enough I’d have water. I’d drink from that pond and take a bath in it, too. Clear, clean water. Then I’d find food—at the cottage if I dared, or somewhere along the road. That I had no money, no direction, no plan did not trouble me. I was about to have water.

Tossing aside my useless coat, I took one tentative step, then another, crouching low in the grass and moving with careful precision, fighting to keep my balance, alert for approaching footsteps or the whine of hunting dogs.

At the pond’s edge I dropped to my knees and let the icy water bite into my mouth. Then I thrust my head down and pierced the shimmering reflection of my face. The shock of the cold thrilled me. I was alive!

A moment later, I was naked, washing the dirt, grime, and all the sickness off me. I slid down in the water again and again, gasping at the effects of the cold. Thrashing back to shore, I collapsed onto the brittle, scratchy grass and smiled up at the sun.

“Marta?” A woman’s voice, calling from across the field. Her lumbering figure came closer. She was maybe eighty years old.

I slipped back into my filthy rags. The old woman was nearly at the pond. There was nothing to do but try to make a break for it. I stood up, clutching my shoes, but my left leg gave out, and I crumpled with an involuntary cry of pain.

The old woman came closer, peering at me in confusion. “Marta? Are you all right?” Her dark eyes were sunken and they rested on me, then moved past. Blind!

She held her arms out in front like antennae, spreading her fingers in an effort to grasp something solid. “Who’s there?” she cried in alarm. “Marta, why won’t you answer? Why won’t you tell me who’s there?”

My teeth began to chatter; the old woman stumbled backward. “I know someone’s there,” she moaned. “Please don’t harm me. I’m a defenseless old woman. The Germans have already taken all the wheat and potatoes. Even the milk cow is gone. I swear to you I have nothing. Please just let an old woman—”

Oblivious in her fear, she moved forward, her senses focused on my unseen presence. “I know someone’s there,” she wailed, tottering for a moment. Then, swinging her arms wildly, she toppled into the water.

I plunged in after her, heedless of my own safety or the consequences. She had fallen in headfirst and was sputtering in an effort to keep her head above water. I grabbed her arm and pulled her to the bank.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I won’t harm you. You’re safe. I promise.”

She peered at me from cataractous eyes. “But why didn’t you answer when I—”

“I was afraid,” I answered quickly. “But it’s all right now. It’s the war. It makes us all fearful. Is that your farmhouse on the rise? Come, I’ll take you home.”

She let me hold her arm and walk her back to the cabin. The feel of her comforted me, and I was glad to give her comfort in return. “I thought you were my daughter Marta,” she said. “She hasn’t been here since dawn. She went to Vishna to trade for bread, and she’s been gone all day. Marta never let the fire go out before. It must be dusk.”

“No,” I said quietly, “it’s still morning. Marta will be home soon, I’m sure.” I felt myself starting to black out. I hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours, and now my legs couldn’t support my own weight, let alone the woman’s. My field of vision narrowed until I saw the cottage as a tiny model at the end of a long tunnel. I fought to keep my feet moving. With each step the cottage came closer, then receded. Marta had gone for bread. Oh, if the old woman could give me some! “I’ll get the fire going,” I assured her, “and—”

And what? I’d heard too many stories of Jews being betrayed by Polish peasants to expect any kindness from Marta. If not from hatred, then out of fear of German reprisals Marta would turn me in. I would have to leave as soon as I got the old woman settled. If she had no food, then maybe a cup of tea, and I’d be gone.

“Why didn’t you answer me by the pond?” the old woman asked again. “You know, you should have said something, you gave me such a fright. I thought perhaps you…Now tell me the truth. You’re not a gypsy, are you?”

I marveled at the irony. “Of course not, grandma.”

The old woman retreated. “I’m sorry. It’s just that ever since the invasion, you hear all the time how—”

We were almost at the house. “I know.”

“When Marta comes back from the shops, it’s all she talks about. The war. The soldiers. They carry on in broad daylight with the young girls, though not Marta, of course. She wouldn’t let them touch her. But some of the loose girls, they have husbands even. Bands of gypsies roaming the countryside. Renegade Jews. It’s disgusting how they let their women—”

I shivered.

“You’re cold,” she said. “Why, you’re so thin you’re almost a stick. I can feel your rib cage. And where’s your coat? Don’t your parents feed and clothe you, poor thing? Or is it your husband?” We reached the steps to the house and began to climb them, though it was difficult to say who was supporting whom. “I shouldn’t ask so many questions,” the woman prattled on. “I’m just a prying old woman. But there’s a fine borscht left over from last night. You can heat some for us if you’re hungry. What did you say your name was, dear?”

Mia. “Saskia,” I said.

We went across the porch and entered the kitchen. In fact, Marta had made a fire this morning, and I knelt by the dying embers, tossed in a log, and blew into the hearth until it ignited. A pot of soup was suspended over the fire, and it quickly heated until the air was thick with its sweet pungency and I nearly fainted in anticipation.

I took up a poker resting by the fireplace and poked at the log, glancing from the iron rod to the old woman’s head, then back to my white knuckles. I could do it! I thought, horrified by my own fantasy. If Marta came and realized who I was—a Jew without clothes, without food—I could murder them both. My father had been betrayed by a “friendly” Pole and then had bought my freedom dearly, perhaps with his own life. It was my duty to survive. Papa had set in motion the events that had brought me to this cottage full of warmth and steaming food and danger. Surely he—and perhaps even God—had a reason for sparing me.

The old woman fussed with the chairs, the place setting, and the bowls until I thought I’d go mad. Finally, she let me ladle out the soup, and we sat facing each other at the table. I swallowed my first steaming spoonful, not caring that it burned my tongue and seared my throat. Nothing had ever tasted so delicious. Tears filled my eyes; my thoughts of murder were too horrible, too cruel. I lifted the bowl and poured nourishment into me. Thank God the woman was blind.

When we had finished eating, the old woman went to a different room and returned carrying a soft flannel robe. “Wear this,” she said. “You’ll want to hang your clothes by the fire to dry.”

“Yes.” I shook my head as if wakening from a dream. The old woman could not imagine what lay behind my clipped responses, the joy and the anguish, the rapture and the terror all colliding in my mind.

I prayed with all my might that Marta would never return.